Schelomo

This ``Rhapsodie hébraïque pour violoncelle et grand orchestre'' was completed during Bloch's ``Jewish Cycle,'' which lasted from 1912–1926.

In the composition, the Jewish heritage and culture seem to be more influential than specific Jewish melodies. Bloch

Bloch wrote,

It was this entire Jewish heritage that moved me deeply, and was reborn in my music. To what extent it is Jewish, to what extent it is just Ernest Bloch, of that I know nothing. The future alone will decide.

The Book of Ecclesiastes is reported to be the main source of inspiration for the piece. First drafted for voice and a meeting with the cellist Alexandre Barjansky inspired him to give the solo voice to the cello, which Bloch wrote was ``vaster and deeper than any spoken language.'' In program notes that Bloch wrote for a performance of Schelomo in 1933, he established that the solo cello is the voice of King Solomon while the orchestra represents the world surrounding him.

A wide-scale lamentation in the solo cello at the beginning leads into a cadenza in the low range of the instrument. The orchestration is thick and uses many out-of-common orchestral colors and effects. many unusual chord progressions, col legno in the strings, and bold brass statements makes the work out of commonly followed paths. The first section ends with a powerful orchestral climax leading into the central section of the work.

The second theme is a rhythmic figure stated first by the bassoon and soon after by the oboe. The cello repeats the cadenza of the first theme while the second theme continues as a counter melody in the woodwinds and brass. The solo cello continues to reiterate the first theme but is overwhelmed by the swelling and increasingly frenzied orchestra.

The third section begins with material first presented in the first and second sections. A forceful orchestral climax gives way to a hushed, tense mood where the cello makes its final statement, ending on a resigned low D.

The Italian critic Guido Gatti wrote of Schelomo,

The violoncello, with its ample breadth of phrasing, now melodic and with moments of superb lyricism, now declamatory and with robustly dramatic lights and shades, lends itself to a reincarnation of Solomon in all his glory. The violoncello part is of so remarkably convincing and emotional power that it may be set down as a veritable masterpiece; not one passage, not a single beat, is inexpressive; the entire discourse of the soloist, vocal rather than instrumental, seems like musical expression intimately conjoined with the Talmudic prose.